


oh how my lungs yearn for your breath

by brave_muffin



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-05-14 10:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14767931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brave_muffin/pseuds/brave_muffin
Summary: i write some sappy stuff on my tumblr and i decided to put it on here as well"Because that’s it isn’t it? I love you. I love you so much that my heart feels full, my lungs swelling with the weight of my emotions, a tidal wave that is about to erupt. My love for you must flow through my bloodstream, it must stain my veins, leaving a mark, a constant reminder that you mean so much to me."





	1. you are the rush within my veins

It is when I am cradling your jaw in my palm, my other hand brushing against the bruise on your cheek on the opposite side of your face, the colour a deep purple like the grapes we ate together a few weeks ago, that I realise that you have met death. That death knows your face, that he has cradled your jaw like I am now, his touch colder than mine, not at all loving.

Because that’s it isn’t it? I love you. I love you so much that my heart feels full, my lungs swelling with the weight of my emotions, a tidal wave that is about to erupt. My love for you must flow through my bloodstream, it must stain my veins, leaving a mark, a constant reminder that you mean so much to me.

But death doesn’t care. Death has seen you, death has seen you and me but still, he will take you from me. He has seen just how much I care, he has seen my veins, my heart, my lungs and he would still leave me alone.

I think this over, the bone of your jawline heavy on my palm, your skin warm beneath my fingertips. You seem worried, dark brows furrowing above red eyes. You reach one of your hands up to hold one of mine and I know without looking that it is bloodied, that some man’s life has ended and all that’s left of him is the crimson that is splattered all over you. And all for me. The thought makes me sick, that you hurt yourself because of me. That you kill for me, break your bones for me, bruise your pale skin for me. The number of people that aren’t here anymore, the people who must miss them, the people they loved weigh heavy on me, my shoulders ache from the phantom pressure of them pushing down on me, trying to crush me.

“Fuyuhiko?” My fingers tremble and I know you felt it. Your voice is calm, but sad. Like you understand. You move your hand until it’s wrapped around my wrist. “Are you ok?”

I almost laugh. I should be asking you that. It’s so odd to me that you are the one with the bruised face, with the broken body and you’re asking me if I’m ok. Me, who just dreams about a world where we share an apartment and we have breakfast together every morning and we talk about what we will do that day and you have no bruises or broken bones and there are no ghosts who haunt us. Me, with the bruises on my knuckles from times when I lost my temper. Me, who loves you.

“Fuyuhiko?” you repeat. “Can you hear me?” Of course I can. I can always hear you. I would hear you in the noise, I would hear you in the silence. My ears are attuned to your voice, the way it drops when you’re angry, the way your laugh gets higher when you find something especially funny.

“Fuyuhiko.” You’ve put your other hand on my face now. I wonder if there is blood on my face now. I don’t care but I know you would. Your hand is warm and I sink into it. “Fuyuhiko, what’s-”

“I love you,” I say. My voice sounds thick, choked, like the words got caught in my throat. I see you swallow, anguish flickering across your features, briefly. I wonder why. It’s the truth, isn’t it? “I love you, I love you, I love-”

You reach forward and kiss me. Your lips are soft and I can taste the grapes we had weeks ago, the breakfast we had in my dreams, and some stranger’s blood. It is crouched on the ground in front of you, your lips on mine, your hand cupping my face, the other gripping my wrist like a lifeline, that I realise that death would never take you from me. He must see the blood on my face, my careful hands, my battered knuckles. Death must know what I would do to him if he took you from me. Death wouldn’t dare.


	2. oh darlings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some good old nagito/hajime/chiaki content my dudes

Because I love you both and my heart thumps the syllables of your names and the world spins on its axis.

You are filled with dreams and fantasies, your very being that of a cloud. I reach out to touch you but you’re always so far, ever elusive and ever-vanishing on me whenever I get too close. You pressed your hands against my ribcage once and sighed like you had found heaven.

She is kindness and sweetness, fingers spilling honey, lips dripping candy floss. Her mouth tastes like sugar and the sweet tooth I never knew I had cracks from the sweep of her tongue. Her palms are warm and my skin lights up wherever she touches me.

And I am me. I am in love with you both, so much so that my heart strains against my chest, beating your initials into the cracks in my skin until I cannot sleep without the thought of you both, cannot breathe without thinking about how pale your hair is, stark against the dark of my skin, about how she whispers my name in the night like I am her saviour.

And I am too ordinary for you both; my hands aren’t soft, they’re worn. My hair isn’t soft, it’s rough. My eyes aren’t sparkling and bright, they’re tired. The only thing extraordinary about me is how much I love you. My love for you must be written in the stars, choirs must sing about how much I love you, non-existent gods must tremble at the weight of my love.

Because that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? I would topple buildings for you both. I would die for you. I would live for you.

I had told you this once, the early sunrise doing nothing to banish the cold that had settled over the world, that we couldn’t even escape in the back of her truck, huddled together.

You had hummed, the noise a vibration that struck me through my collarbone. I would say the shiver was from the chill but I’d be lying.

She had frowned and gazed up at me with pale eyes through dark eyelashes.  _Don’t be dramatic,_  she had said after a moment and laid her hand across my ribs.

My heart had thumped harshly and I remember wondering if either of you knew. Could you feel your names, pressed into my skin? But you had said nothing so I simply focused on the heat of her hand through my shirt, your breath dusting the skin of my neck.

Because that’s all there is. My love for you both. My heart, thumping your names. The world, spinning. And all the while you are both oblivious. But that’s alright. For, the stars don’t know they are admired and they shine on anyway, don’t they?


	3. overturn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i feel like peko and fuyuhiko are easier to write for me???? there's so much angst and im an asshole lmao

Sometimes I stay up, late into the night, haunted by the possibility that there are parallel universes where we never meet. That there is a me out there who doesn’t know you, doesn’t know the way your nose twitches when you lie, doesn’t know that you always eat blueberries when you talk to me when we both should be sleeping, doesn’t know that your eyes are an exact shade of gold that reminds me of the Henry the VIII with his golden crown and his dead wives.

I know that you are fascinated by Henry the VIII. Right now, you’re talking about him, going over everything that you know, again and again. “Not that I admire him or anything,” you scoff. “He was a right bastard, evil and quite a dick. But it’s just the Tudors y'know? You understand what I mean right?” I can only nod, distracted. It is three in the morning and this is the fourth time you’ve said this and the moonlight is lighting your skin up like you aren’t of this world.

But someone, some me, doesn’t know any of this. They don’t lie on your bed beside you while we discuss dead kings and their dead lovers. They are probably something boring, like an accountant. You hate accountants. I remember when Hajime said he wanted to be an accountant, you threatened to kill him out of mercy. I remember laughing so hard I felt like I was floating away, right into the clouds.

I realise you’ve gone quiet and I feel a flare of panic as you’ve probably just asked me a question and I am just staring at you, thinking about things that aren’t important, not really.

You turn to me suddenly. Your eyes flicker to mine for a second before you stare back up at the ceiling. “I think I love you,” you say and I feel my heart stop. You frown. “No, I don’t think. I know. I know I love you. I don’t know why I said that. That was dumb, can we pretend that didn’t hap-”

“I love you too.”

You mouth snaps shut and you glance at me from the corner of your eye. My heart has started beating again and I wonder if you can hear it. It’s not in my chest anymore. It ran away, it’s hidden in your ribs. Can you see it? It’s thumping for you, darling.

“Good,” you say, finally. “It would be awkward if you didn’t.”

I laugh, scarcely a breath that hits the skin of your shoulder but it has you grinning at my wryly. “Fuyuhiko?” You hum in response, shifting to face me. We’re both lying on our sides and I can your hands brush against my skin, the contact sending a bolt of lightening through my veins. “Kiss me.”

Your face flushes but you comply. And all of a sudden, none of it matters. The other me, the one that doesn’t know you, doesn’t matter. Henry the VIII and all of his dead wives don’t matter. Because they aren’t the ones lying in your bed, tasting the blueberries on your tongue. They don’t even know your name. How sad for them. I almost spare them a second thought.


	4. Chapter 4

There is blood dripping down my fingers, but you seem more concerned with this than I am.

“Your knuckles are busted but they aren’t broken,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “But your nose wasn’t so lucky. Damnit, Fuyuhiko,” you curse, reaching up to drag your hand through your hair in frustration and a streak of dark red is left in the pale colour.

I blink. Slowly. I know you’re talking but the words take light years to reach my ears as though we are on separate planets and you are shouting in a megaphone just to speak to me. Or as though I am in a swimming pool, sitting below the water and you are sitting above, your words causing ripples in the water. All these metaphors spin my head in a circle and it makes me feel sick, so I stop thinking and just focus on you.

Everything is going blurry, but you are clear, you always are, you always will be. I wonder if you know I’m in love with you. I suppose that you do, somewhere between the first bouquet flowers I bought you and punching that guy in the throat for catcalling you just an hour ago, I must have said something. I feel as though ‘I love you’ is strong enough to describe how I feel about you anymore. Perhaps at some point it could have been but the second you smiled at me for the first time, it became too weak. How do I describe to you that my heart is a fist that clenches whenever I see you? That my lungs only exist so that I can stop breathing when you make eye contact with me? I don’t know much about love in general, but I know enough to realise that what I feel is much more than that.

You’re frowning now and I hate that, even if you are beautiful with your brows pulled together and my blood staining your hair. You’re always beautiful. It’s beside the point. You’re frowning and I want you to stop because I want you to be happy, that’s all I ever want. I scramble to say something, anything. Half of me wants to talk about what happened, about how the anger I felt had pooled in my veins like hot lava when I heard that man whistle at you, how my knuckles had felt when they hit his cheek, how my head felt as though it had split open when he punched me back. I think you had looked angry as well, almost as angry as that time I fell off your mother’s ladder when I was trying to hang fairy lights above her front door, but the memory is fuzzy so I let it go and it floats away into the abyss.

The other half of me wants to talk about anything else. Maybe about that TV show we were binge watching last week or about that book you were reading when I came home late the other day, what was the name of it. I can’t remember.

“Fuyuhiko?” you say, still frowning, your hand cool where it cups my cheek. We had a running joke, didn’t we? About how you are always as cold as the dead but I am always as hot as a furnace? I can’t remember. “Fuyuhiko, are you alright? Fuyuhiko, what’s my name? Fuyuhiko.”

Peko, I want to say. Peko, Peko, Pekopekopeko. But the words don’t come and I feel like I’m frowning right back at you. What a pair we make, people must wonder if we ever smile.

You say something else but I don’t quite hear it and I feel like I’m back on that planet again, seeing you as a pinprick in the distance but you don’t have your megaphone anymore, or I’m underwater but there are no ripples in the water because you’re not there and I inhale sharply and suddenly my lungs are filled with water and I’m choking I’m drowning and there is a crack in my skull that seems to throb like a heartbeat – your heartbeat? – and you aren’t there and you should be there where are you where areyouwhereareyou?

What was I thinking? I can’t remember. I should tell you I love you, I think and close my eyes and slip into the abyss.


End file.
